News and Reviews....

Bluetooth Audio Splinters .......   January  2004

Just released ...... The PC and Consumer Audio industries are taking separate paths to deliver audio over Bluetooth. This raises the possibility of incompatible wireless MP3 players, headsets and speakers. 

Bluetooth is now gaining market share in its core market of cellular handsets and is pulling together forces for next generation specs that could deliver megabit data rates along with multimedia.

A few of the top consumer companies, including Matsushita, Philips, Sony and Toshiba have defined a low cost means for streaming audio to Bluetooth headsets with plans to roll out products in 2004.  At the same time Microsoft and a group of unnamed OEMs are hammering out a different approach based on the Internet Protocol (IP), to implement on the PC.

Industry chip makers would like to see all go the same way, which would bring the most advantages to the consumer. The A/V working group are using the 723-kbit/second Bluetooth version 1.2 spec and the advanced audio distribution profile (A2DP) as defined by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) in May of this past year

The issue for Microsoft is audio quality, particularly in an environment of multiple Bluetooth devices. Wireless keyboards, mice and other 2.4-GHz gadgets could generate interference that might result in crackling speakers when PCs stream audio over Bluetooth. A2DP is a point to point spec that does not take that scenario into account. As with all new applications of an existing technology it will remain to be seen as to when the PC and consumer camps come together for the better of the whole.